BOURNE, MASS. (WHDH) – More than 100,000 homes and businesses are still without power after a fall nor’easter wreaked havoc on the Bay State, but restoration is expected to be completed in the coming days.
Approximately 180,000 customers remained without power as of 11 p.m. Thursday, according to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
Eversource President and CEO Joe Nolan said he expects to see full restoration soon.
“We gave a global ETR of Saturday night at 6 p.m.,” he said during a press conference Thursday.
Cape Cod and the Islands, along with southeastern Mass., felt the brunt of the strong winds during the fall nor’easter that lasted from Tuesday to Wednesday.
The highest gust of the storm was recorded at 94 mph at a ferry dock on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, officials said.
“I’m just very eager for them to wrap up the job because it’s been kind of frustrating, to say the least,” said Bourne resident Joel Black. “But, it’s reassuring to see that they’re on top of the situation.”
Eversource has 1500 line and tree crews on the job, some hailing from Canada, Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee to help. Nolan has weathered many storms in his role and says this week’s was one of the top five worst.
The whipping winds prevented utility crews from getting up in bucket trucks to repair the power during the storm but Nolan says that they were still able to make progress in their restoration efforts. Now that the winds have dissipated, even more, progress will hopefully come faster.
“We had a real good assessment that took place, so even though the buckets couldn’t go up in the air, the assessment allowed us to see what we were looking at in the system,” he explained.
After hours of sitting in the dark, power crews were able to restore electricity for some Bourne residents like Al Cotugno and Deb Levine.
“Our neighbor behind us has a generator, so he gave us a cord, he fed a cord into our house — which was wonderful — and we were able to plug one thing in at a time,” Levine said. “It’s nice to have power.”
As the lights come on for some, many realize it is the simple things that matter most.
“I would hope and anticipate that [Eversource] will be able to deliver on what they said earlier today […] which means Halloween should be normal,” Gov. Charlie Baker said on Thursday.
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